Fewer than one in five bureaucrats have voted in favour of industrial action, according to the results of all ballots that have taken place.

About two-thirds of staff in the 11 workplaces now poised to strike are not union members and could not vote. Among unionists, about a quarter abstained or otherwise failed to complete a ballot paper.

However, each ballot has resulted in a strong endorsement – an average of 92.1 per cent of votes – of some form of industrial action.

Employment Minister Eric Abetz, who is overseeing wage negotiations for about 150,000 Commonwealth workers, said the data showed most public servants appreciated that the government had inherited a serious deficit.

"They appreciate the need to work with the government under the current budget conditions and would prefer a minimal wage rise with job security, rather than engage in the [Community and Public Sector Union]'s outlandish pay claims and its industrial actions," he said.

"The CPSU should stop exaggerating support for its industrial action, abandon its ridiculous 12.5 per cent wage claim and stop standing between public servants and the entirely responsible wage rises on offer."

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Almost a year has passed since most federal bureaucrats' pay deals lapsed. The government has ruled out back pay when new agreements are eventually reached.

A few workplaces have even offered staff a salary "rise" of 0 per cent, combined with the loss of some benefits, though most are offering a pay increase of about 1 per cent a year.

No agency has yet struck a deal with staff under the Abbott government's new bargaining policy, which came into effect early last year.

Senator Abetz said the sooner the union adopted "a reasonable approach to bargaining, the sooner public servants will benefit from affordable deals which don't endanger their own jobs".

However, the union's national secretary, Nadine Flood, said the minister's attack "just smacks of desperation".

"The 'reasonable' agreements minister Abetz is pushing are actually much harsher than those offered by any major private sector employer," she said.

"The minister can't name any major employer offering to strip 40 to 70 per cent of enterprise agreements' content, cut conditions, remove workers' right to representation – and all for less than 1 per cent in pay.

"If minister Abetz is so confident of the views of public servants, why aren't there more enterprise agreements being put to a staff vote? Because agency heads know they'd go down in a screaming heap, just like in minister Abetz's own department, where 95 per cent of staff rejected a nasty deal."

The CPSU says it has signed up 10,000 new members since the government began pay talks.

Union members in 11 government departments and agencies – with a combined workforce of about 90,000 public servants – have already applied successfully to take industrial action, though their campaign has been limited to date.

Last month, for example, some Centrelink and Medicare front-counter staff wore casual clothes rather than uniforms and handed out leaflets about the union's campaign to clients.

The Agriculture Department docked four hours' pay from 10 workers who, for a 15-minute period, had refused to inspect meat.

Staff in the Employment Department, meanwhile, held several short work stoppages, ranging from 10 minutes to just over an hour.